Jnne 19. 1890. ] 
JOURXAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
513 
become ejected into a wheelbarrow by striking the handle of the broom 
smartly uMn a rail made to lie suspended across it. The action of 
drawing the broom will cause the water to circulate, and a fresh 
burden of slime will be ready within arms’ length each time the 
collection is ejected from the broom-head into the barrow, and so on 
till the slime, or what not, from the water’s surface is soon cleared 
off. I am careful to have it done almost daily from the pond where 
niy cows drink.— Robt. 
CALIFORNIAN PALMS. 
The most remarkable arboreal feature of the deserts of southern 
California is the Washingtonia. It is as pre-eminent in its arid home as 
the Sequoia is in the forests of the Sierra, which it further resembles in 
growing only in a limited area. Perhaps the comparison may be carried 
further, for as the “ Big Trees ” now living are but the lingering giants 
of a vanished forest, so it is probable that these Palms are the scattered 
descendants of a more abundant race that once occupied the borders of 
the arm of the Californian Gulf which filled formerly the bed of the 
desert they now inhabit. We find them further north and west, at 
AVhitewater, at an altitude of 1126 feet. Thence the desert, broadening 
into a wide valley, falls rapidly, till at Indio, only seven miles away, it 
is 20 feet below the sea level, and at Frink’s Spring, twenty miles further 
ease, it is 260 feet below. In this depression the lingering waters formed 
a salt lake so recently that the record of its slowly receding levels is 
still visible in the discolorations of the cliffs which in places once 
formed its shore. It is along the hills which border the bed of this 
extinct sea that the most extensive Palm groves are found, while 
seattering trees mark the direction of the channel which orce led to the 
gulf. 
These considerations may explain the anomaly presented by 
this Palm of being the only arborescent species in the United States 
which grows at any great distance from the sea. Its station at White- 
water is the northern limit of Palm growth on the western side of the 
American continent, more than a degree further south than is reached 
by the Sabal Palmetto on the eastern coast. 
The Southern Pacific Railway runs through the desert I have 
mentioned, and between Indio and Seven-Palms stations some large 
groves of Washingtonias can be seen at the bases of the hills, a few 
miles to the north. A surface overlaying water, brown with alkali, pro¬ 
duces here strips of damp soil, whitened with saline incrustations which 
coat even the stems of the Salt Grass (Distichlis maritima) which spreads 
a sod of dingy green, grateful amid the surrounding bareness. Here the 
Desert Palm finds a congenial soil, for it is an oasis plant, and requires 
moisture for its roots. Though the most accessible, these are not the 
most satisfactory groves to visit. The number of really fine specimens 
here is not great, and most are badly damaged by fire. Their open 
situation exposes them to the full force of the desert siroccos, so that 
they have a gaunt and worn look, as if the struggle for existence had 
been hard. A smaller but much finer group is to be found in a sheltered 
canon of the San Jacinto Mountains some ten miles south of Seven-Palms 
station. Following a short distance the slender stream of clear water 
that runs through the narrow bed of this canon a more open place is 
reached, floored with wet sand in which lie half buried great angular 
fragments of granite. Here are growing a hundred Palms, mostly in 
the sand, but a few on the steep hillsides. There are some noble trees 
here, and the whole grove has an aspect of thrift. 
Dr. Parry tells us that the Desert Palm was discovered by the 
botanists of the Mexican Boundary Survey, who supposed it to be the 
Palmetto of the American coast. However, no mention is made of it in 
the report, and its first appearance in botanical literature is in the 
Smithsonian Report for 1860, where Cooper refers it doubtfully to Brahea 
dulcis. Mart. Then Herr Wendland, the distinguished Palmographer of 
Hanover, placed it in Prichardia, as P. filamentosa. Later, erecting for 
it a new genus, he called it Washingtonia filifera, fittingly reviving for 
the generic name one formerly bestowed on the Sequoia, but which the 
law of priority did not permit that genus to stand. The change in 
the specific name was less happy, as the strict construction of the 
recent reformers of nomenclature will demand that it be changed 
to filamentosa. Somewhere it has also picked up the name of Brahea 
filifera, by which it is usually known in horticulture. Its common 
names in California are Desert Palm, Fan Palm, or sometimes San 
Diego Palm, from its growing wild in the United States, only in 
that county, and not in San Bernardino, as is usually stated in 
botanical works. 
Seventy-five feet is probably the greatest height reached by the 
Desert Palm. The top is crowned by a cluster of light green leaves, 
whose stout stems, deeply channelled and beset along the edges with 
hooked spines, are 8 feet or more in length. The plaited blades are 
some 4 feet in diameter, gladiately cleft at the edges, which are 
abundantly furnished with long, thread-like filaments. The leaves 
gradually turn down with age, until at last, layer over layer, they 
surround the trunk with a dry thatch, which descends in a regular cone 
from the verdant crown to the ground. This makes an admirable 
natural protection to the trunk from the scorching heat and drying 
winds of the desert. Unfortunately most trees have been deprived of 
this mantle. Its inflammable material is easily kindled by an accidental 
fire, and is an almost irresistible temptation to the passing vandal; but 
the most destruction is attributed to the desert Indians, who are said to 
bum the dry leaves that they may more easily gather the fruit. That 
any plants survive this ordeal of flame is strong evidence of the vitality 
of the species. No endogen could live through such a martyrdom. But 
of all the Palms of a fruiting size growing in the Colorado Desert very 
few have escaped it. I remember seeing only one tree, and that not 
over 20 feet high, with its protecting thatch uninjured. Naturallyit 
would persist certainly many years. On eultivated trees where the dead 
leaves are kept cut off close to the trunk their fibrous bosses adhere so 
long that not more than 4 feet at the base will be free from them in a 
twenty-year-old tree. The bark is then seen to be grey, with close- 
transverse fissures. The w’ood is fibrovascular, with a specific gravity 
of 0-51. 
A mature tree produces in June three or four large panicles of sm.alf 
scorious flowers. The stout terete peduncle ascends from the axil of a 
leaf near the centre of the crown, and is of the length of the petioles, so 
that the ultimate divisions droop over the blades. Gradually the 
peduncle declines, till, in September or October, the ripe fruit hangs- 
pendent over the mass of dead leaves. Each cluster produces some ten 
pounds of fruit, the size of a large pea, with a thin, sweetish pulp and a 
bony seed. 
The Desert Palm was early planted at the old Spanish missions, and 
some fine specimens still remain. One of the best is in the grounds of 
Mr. T. II. Ramirez, in Los Angeles, and is now fifty years old. A carefnl 
estimate of the height, made recently by the Rev. J. C. Nevin is as 
follows Height of living leaves, 14 feet ; mass of dead leaves, 10 feet ;. 
trunk, 34 feet; total height, 68 feet ; circumference 3 feet from ground, 
10 feet 10| inches. 
The same tree w'as measured in 1880 by Dr, Engelmann, who 
estimated the height as substantially the same, and found the circum¬ 
ference to be only 4 inches less. 
A tree growing on Second Street in San Bernardino, twenty-two 
years from the seed, measures :—To the leaves 22 feet; roof crown,. 
10 feet; total height, 32 feet ; circumference 3 feet from ground,. 
9 feet 2 inches. This tree has produced flowers and fruit for the first 
time the present year. During the last few years many thousands of 
these Palms have been planted in southern California, which in time 
■will become notable features in the landscape. 
So far as is actually known, the Palm already described is the only 
one indigenous in California, or indeed anywhere in the United States 
west of the Atlantiq and Gulf coast-regions. There are, however, some 
indications that other species may be waiting discovery. Two species 
of Erythrpea are near our borders. E. edulis, lFat<8., inhabits the island 
of Guadaloupe, off the coast of Lower California, while E. armata. 
Watts., comes within thirty miles of the boundary on the Mexican side,, 
and may be found in some yet unexplored canon on the American side. 
Ten years ago Mr. W. G. AVright obtained from the desert Indians- a 
few Palm seed of different kinds, which appear to belong to no known 
species. They were represented to have been procured in the neighbour¬ 
ing desert, but the most zealous efforts failed to lead to the discovery of 
the trees. There is some reason to think that they may have beem 
brought from Mexican territory. 
AVashingtonia robusta, described by AVendland in 1883, is also sup¬ 
posed to be Californian, but its origin and ch.aracter are alike doubtful. 
It was founded on some young plants raised in a Dutch nursery, the 
seeds of which were supposed by the proposer of the species to have 
come from the “A’'alley of the Sacramento River, in California”—an 
obvious error. Again, M. Roezl is said (by E. Andre in the Revue- 
Horticole) “ to have gathered the fresh seed in Arizona.” It is quite 
certain that no botanist is known to have seen an indigenous tree. Seed 
collectors, however, are more fortunate, and are able to supply 
abundantly the market with W. robusta seed, which has no apparent 
difference from that of the common Desert Palm, except its higher price. 
The published characters of the proposed species show no important 
points of difference from the better known one, and, indeed, are hardly 
sufficient for more than a garden variety. May not the seed from which 
the original plants were raised have been gathered from a AV. filifera 
having individual peculiarities that impressed upon its progeny the 
minor characteristics by which they seem to differ from the ordinary 
form ? Greater variations are procured by seed selection by cultivators,, 
and among plants growing wild marked individual differences are not 
uncommon. At best this species is a very obscure one, and it is to be- 
hoped that more light may be thrown upon its true character.;— 
G. B. Parish, San Bernardino, Cal. (in American Garden'). 
STRAAA^BERRIES. 
In 1888 we planted a few runners of Noble obtained from Mr. Laxton, 
and in 1889 finding them very promising we took a large quantity of 
runners, striking them in pots, and planting them out in rows 18 inches 
apart, three plants in each stool. 
AV’e are now picking Strawberries off the 1889 plants, they having 
surpassed all the others by ten days at least, as we sold our Strawberries 
off them on the 7th June, good in colour, fine flavour, and so large in 
size that in the first punnet we sold we had ten berries that made half 
pound. 
AVe are on a dry limestone soil, and have derived much benefit from- 
the late dropping weather, and shall now have a very heavy crop of 
Strawberries, more particularly on Noble and Captain. 
AVe found that the 1889 plants of Noble have the earliest and largest 
berries, but the 1888 plants will be the heaviest croppers, as many of 
them will yield up to 2 lbs. each. Sir Joseph Paxton, Vicomtesse Heri- 
